dumbbell
/ˈdʌm.bɛl/
dumbbell noun: a weight training implement consisting of a short bar with weight counterpoised on each end.
Noun
dumbbell (plural dumbbells)
- A weight training implement consisting of a short bar with weight counterpoised on each end.
- He was exercising with the dumbbells in gym class today.
- He also had a room strewn with the toys of the trade and what-have-you: ropes and ironmongery, buoyancy aid and bagpipes, fetid socks and half-eaten haggises, dumbbells and ski-instructor sweaters.1997, Pete McDonald, Climbing Lessons: Inside Outdoor Education, page 40
- A bell with no clapper, used as bell-striking practice or to strike as a form of physical exercise
- A stupid person.
- That's fool's gold, you dumbbell. Iron pyrite. Nobody would give you a dime for a ton of it.2015, Floyd Merrell, Enigmas: Gold Fever, Space-Time Warps, Sierra Madre Magic
dumbbell meaning in Tagalog, Arabic and Vietnamese
dumbbell in Tagalog
- a weight with two disks attached to a short bar
- pesas
dumbbell in Arabic
- a weight with two disks attached to a short bar
- دُمْبِل dumbil
dumbbell in Vietnamese
- a weight with two disks attached to a short bar
- quả tạ
Examples of dumbbell in a sentence
- On the map Gansu is shaped like a dumbbell lying obliquely from east to west.2007, “The Years before the End of the War”, in A Girl From Shanghai: The Story of Lillian Hsu, a Medical Geneticist, a NTU Medical College...
- Her eternal quest was for self-improvement, underscored also by the dumbbells she hoisted well before Jane Fonda made it fashionable.2026 May 24, Alexandra Jacobs, “How Marilyn Monroe Gave a Smart Gloss to Her Image”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Forms of dumbbell
| plural | dumbbells |
|---|---|
| alternative misspelling | dumbell |
| alternative form (rare) | dumb-bell |
Origin of dumbbell
From dumb (“silent”) + bell (“a resonating instrument”). The term "dumbbell" originated in 16th-century England to describe silent exercise apparatus used in practicing the motions of ringing church bells noiselessly. To aid them in the practice of their physically demanding vocation, bellringers originally used weighted ropes on fixed pulleys to mimic the motion of ringing a church bell; since such apparatus made no noise while imitating the motion of ringing a swinging bell via a fixed pulley, they were called "dumb bells". Later, the rope-and-pulley weights evolved into simple hand-held weights used by ringers for strengthening the shoulder and back muscles heavily used in tower bellringing, and the term "'dumb bell'" evolved into the compound word "'dumbbell'".
Words formed from dumbbell
Phrases with dumbbell
Questions about dumbbell
- What does dumbbell mean?
- Dumbbell means a weight training implement consisting of a short bar with weight counterpoised on each end.
- What is dumbbell in Tagalog?
- Dumbbell in Tagalog is pesas. See Dumbbell meaning in Tagalog.
- How do you use dumbbell in a sentence?
- On the map Gansu is shaped like a dumbbell lying obliquely from east to west.
- What part of speech is dumbbell?
- Dumbbell is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dumbbell?
- Dumbbell is pronounced /ˈdʌm.bɛl/.
- What is the plural of dumbbell?
- The plural of dumbbell is dumbbells.
Words near dumbbell in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dumbbell (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-ca-dumbbell.oga.
Cite this entry: “dumbbell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dumbbell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.